Susanna’s – Rosarito – Restaurant Review

After spending the morning exploring Las Playas de Tijuana with a few friends, we headed about 20 minutes south to Rosarito Beach for lunch. It’s been years since I’ve visited the seaside town once known as the spot for a wild spring break.

My memories of Rosarito include some wild spring break adventures during my days at San Diego State. Additional memories of Rosarito are from when I lived in Los Angeles and took a yearly road trip with friends to Puerto Nuevo for a lobster lunch after a stop in Rosarito.

Arriving in Rosarito on my recent trip, the one thing that stood out was the recently renovated Rosarito Beach Hotel. The once small hotel, has expanded and a new tower offers a lot more rooms. The main street in town, which runs parallel with the beach has the same combination of shops, restaurants and bars I remember. We headed to Pueblo Plaza, about two blocks from the Rosarito Beach hotel. The entrance to Pueblo Plaza is made of rock waterfalls and inside the plaza is a spa, coffee shop and Susanna’s Restaurant.

The restaurant is named after the owner, Susanne Stehr. She is an expat from the Los Angeles area who has owned the restaurant for 11 years.

The restaurant has an open kitchen and several options for seating including an outdoor patio, a main dining room and cozy room where you can watch the chefs in action. The main dining room is upscale with a homey feel. The table are set beautifully and is the room is decorated with the handmade furniture Rosarito is famous for.

The food is California cuisine and all made from scratch. Our lunch began with a round of scratch margarita’s and a jalapeño and cream cheese won-ton wrapper topped with a jalapeno honey glaze. Imagine a very elevated jalapeño popper!

Jalapeño Cream Cheese Empanadas

Next course was tortilla soup or a choice of salad. I opted for asparagus salad. It was a delicious bed of mixed greens tossed in homemade balsamic mustard vinaigrette with sliced strawberries, pear, tomato and topped with grilled asparagus, feta cheese and pine nuts.

Asparagus Salad

For our second course we had a choice of strawberry salmon, cilantro shrimp pesto, blue cheese fettuccine Alfredo, grilled pork chop or what I opted for; lemon dill poached sole in a dill butter sauce. If you didn’t know it, you’d think it was lobster. This sole was so good, I have been telling friends and family about it and craving it! I can’t wait to head back and have it again!

Lemon Dill Poached Sole

We ended our meal sharing Susanne’s famous chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream and her decadent homemade orange flan.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Orange Flan

The best meal I’ve ever had in Rosarito (and if you know how many times I visited there in my college days) you’ll know this actually means something. This is a restaurant worth taking a journey for! Live in Southern California or plan to visit? My recommendation = Go!!

And if you are ever in Rosarito and in the mood for a murder mystery dinner – Susanna’s hosts one in the cellar of the restaurant. (Call for times and dates)

Alexa Meisler is the editorial director of 52 Perfect Days. Born in Paris, France she has since lived in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. She currently resides in San Diego with her husband and son where they enjoy exploring California and Mexico.
Travel has always been a part of her life; traveling to such places as Morocco, Tangiers and Spain as a young child as well as taking many road trips to Mexico with her grandparents as a young girl. Since then, she has traveled abroad to locations such as Russia, Taiwan and throughout Europe.
Prior to working at 52 Perfect Days she was a freelance travel writer; focusing on family and women’s adventure experiences.